Dreaming in Lao

Luang Prabang is an awfully nice place to spend a few days. Not a bad place to get and then recover from a stomach bug, in fact. The town itself is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which I think means that development is controlled, and the town -- though well-touristed -- has remained very quiet.


Morning


and evening

Luang Prabang is on a peninsula formed by the meeting of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, and the closer you get to the northern tip of the peninsula, the quieter it gets and the more colonial the buildings -- when they're not Buddhist temples. (more on those in a later post)





Phou Si, the hill in the middle of the town, includes a footprint of the Buddha that is a little hard to make out (giant toeprints?) but you can't miss the view.



No disappointments on food here, either. In addition to the fascinating things they do with sticky rice (like dry it on the back of the local public transportation), there are many other delicious things on offer.



Let's get a closer look at those.



The markets are bursting with all sorts of edibles -- from enticing to alarming.





Plus, there's coffee that would interest astrophysicists. Not only does it absorb, and probably bend, all light around it, it shrugs off dairy products with total indifference. You pour in milk. Nothing happens. Pour in more. Still black. You can eventually taste the massive quantities of milk and sugar you may end up adding, but the color might never lighten.

This substance should not be trifled with.


Dark matter

Good street food, too. I will admit that it's possible that this particular dinner choice contributed to the bug referenced above, but we're hoping not. It was delicious, amazingly cheap, and a nice way to meet other people, as you eat at long tables set along an alley.


Vegetarian buffet


A downtown both quiet and blurry

One reason the town is so quiet is that there are very few cars. We loved how it felt like we might not even die or anything when we tried to cross the street.


Ladies in buns can cross the road


And ladies in hats can cross the bridge

Fortunately, to liven up all this sedateness, there's a nearby waterfall.



There, Marty obliged a group of Chinese tourists by providing on-demand entertainment.